Pages

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Rough Night

Yesterday I got home from work and heard the surprising news that Abigail had asked to go to bed early; she wasn't feeling well and hand a low grade fever of 99, so the sitter had just put her to bed. I didn't think much of it, and after eating dinner, I sent John in to check Abigail's temp.

When he said that is was 102, we kicked back into doctor/nurse mode (after both of us had had very long days at work), and while he woke her up, I got Tylenol and Motrin for her. After a bit of cajoling, she got it down. And up it came, after all of 3 seconds.

Let me just tell you right now: taking care of a sick kid is no fun. Taking care of a sick kid who is on the top bunk is just plain hard. Her first instinct was to puke over the side of the bed, which, as you could imagine, would have resulted in puke all over the bed, the bottom bunk, the furniture, the carpet, and me. But my quick-witted nursing mind took over and before she actuallty vomitted, I pushed her head back over her sheets.

When she was done, I sent her with John to get cleaned up while I cleaned up her bed. So fun. Then we began the "take a sip of water and see if it will stay down" cajoling. 2 loads of laundry, half a cup of water, and another dose of Tylenol later, I was able to go to bed. Since he was off today, John volunteered to take the "I'll listen for her puking again" shift on the couch, and I headed to bed at 12:30am. An hour later, Abigail woke up John to say that she was scared- scared she would throw up again, and could he sleep next to her on the floor? Of course, John's doctorish instinct is to run far away from anyone who might throw up, but, he was brave and went and camped out on her floor.

In the mean time, I was having a very strange dream. I lived in my current apartment complex, so I had neighbors across the way from me. For some reason, I had a balcony off the master bedroom, and on the balcony was my outdoor shower. I wanted to take a shower, but I could see my neighbor across the way watching for me. In fact, he was sitting on his balcony, waiting for me to go out and get cleaned up. I didn't. Also on my balcony was a trash can in the shape of a Starbucks cup. (Anyone want to take a stab at interpreting that dream?)

At 6:20 this morning, John woke me up since I was sleeping through my alarm. I stumbled into the hall to make the coffee that I must have before heading to work, and as I walked past her room, Abigail saw me and came out to the hall (John had promptly fallen back to sleep on her floor.)

"Momma," she said. "Guess what? I didn't throw up again!"

"That's great!" I replied, relieved that I didn't have to do another load of laundry.

"Wait, let me show you something." She went back into her room and picked something up. "Look," she whispered, extending her arms towards me, "No puke in my puke bucket!"

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

OK. I don't usually read your other blog but here is my interpretation. You had this dream as your alarm was going off. In your head you were needing to get up but you couldn't quite wake up. So you needed to fix the coffee (thus the coffee cup garbage can). It's a garbage can because that is what was on your mind from the pukey nite before. (puking in the garbage can/bucket) The shower????? Not sure about your neighbors, so can't really help except to say, you knew you needed to get up and get a shower but you were looking for an 'excuse' not to get up????